chou chope

family devalues

the mother, "well, your daddy chased me. i never did like his mother."

methodone man, "you mean nana? you didn't like nana? i always loved nana. why didn't you like nana?"

the mother, "i just never liked her."

drunk son, "you shitting me? you mean you don't know?"

methodone man, "what? about nana? i always loved staying with her during the summers. what about nana?

drunk son, "why she was the town whore. while you were playing football she was fucking the sheriff in the parking lot."

methodone man, "NNNNOOOOOOoooooo, not nana"

i heard the whole conversation and it ended with a grown man crying. i shake my head, and try to shake the whole experience, but it can't be undone.

i'm thankful for my own sick twistedness, my broken home and genetic scars. i'm not perfect, not even close, but i come from good people, better people than me. no whores in my family tapestry, and now i know how very troubling that can be to account for during a family reunion.

keep your pants on, peeps, do it for your grandchildren.

come on feel the noise

ouchy wah wah..
i'm just recovering from the best day there ever was.
well, that's according to the alleygato.

first, the legos true ordered came in the mail. the ups man is so loved over here. "YAY, the brown guy is here!! you know what dat means?" freak out to follow.

then, we went to the big city. we bought some school clothes and had a nice meal, but we were there to roller skate. i've tried to remember how old i was when i last went roller skating. i really don't know.

the other weird thing, this particular rink was eerily familiar. i had long time ties to this part of town, so it's conceivable. but maybe it's just the generic set up of a roller rink. lockers, strobe lights, disco ball, dj station, snack bar & video games...paradise.

i apologized when i paid the entry fee. i didn't know what this was going to be like. the cashier assured me it would come right back. it did.

before long i was zooming along trying to teach the boys. true likes to squat down like a racer and just be pushed. which is fun, because honestly he doesn't care a thing about learning to roller skate. he just wants to go really fast and crash, and his skill and risk levels meet that criteria so we're all happy.

alleycat never got there. if i were to skate with him and hold his hand, it was like holding on to jerry lewis tapdancing on roller skates. never looked safe or even comfortable, and not a bit fun, but he kept going around, around and around and around. everytime, saying, "i can't skate but i'm practicing." cool, alex, very cool.

so i got overly comfortable. i'd skate with one boy and then circle around to check up on the other. we hokey pokied, we raced, we rested, and when it was almost all over, and the smiles were permablasted on our mugs WHOA, WHOA, WHU, THUD! i wiped out and took both boys with me. beautiful.

after that, i had one margarita, fed the boys and we drove home. all in all, it was the best day ever.

thou doth protest too much, methinks

Al Zonkarr has waged mullet jihad against me in the tongue of the great bard. how dare he expose my past indiscretions with the plump purple one on the public boards of this world? indiscretions that were shared with him alone whilst i was digging out his pickle within the safe hills of helen. i only shared that his soul might be spared some sadness for the digging of the pickle became more of an endless search, an unsatiated quest for badcock that was not to be.

fine, have it your way, oh mullet mullah:

His post 'gainst self-slaughter! O Fodder! O Fodder!
how weak, frail, spat unprofitable
Seem to me all his uses of this blogworld!
Fie on't! Fie! my blogroll tis an unweeded garden,
that grows not the good weed;
but things skank and grossly immature
Possess it dearly. That it should come to this!
But in two months dead! nay, not so much, not two:
Helen aligns us all in just over one.

can't wait, supa freak. bring it!

going blind the hard way

beautiful people, i'll have to keep this short.

en route to the daycare this morning, i went to brush my bangs out of my eyes and somehow stabbed myself. went instantly blind. both eyes welled up and began tearing, i could barely keep my car on the road. pulled off and got it together.

had to drive the rest of the way covering the bad eye. as the pain waned, the blurriness intensified. at the daycare, i hastily ushered the boys to their respective classrooms. talked to the teachers about the week's upcoming events, swimdays, days lunches needed, you know, mommy stuff. once i returned to the car, i looked in the mirror to see if i could see anything.

holy cow. beauty, people. picture tammy faye with one blood red eyeball. yeah, it wasn't pretty. poor chou children, you know those teachers there must suspect i have a major drug problem. mascara stripes all down my face and i'm just yaking away about field trips and pb&js. classic chou karma.

anyway, the eye is hurting and still blurry, and the headache from staring at numbers all day, horrific. i'll be fine, but i'm going to turn in early as shut eye has never sounded so good. i'm overdue for beauty rest or i'm sure i'll scare some more innocents tomorrow.

sleep tight

for my blog love

o dearest one
the dark is on us now
the day is done
and far beyond us now
just this once
let's pretend that we won
let's feel lucky
dearest one

yeah that we have begun
o dearest one

Jon Dee Graham

update: t1g hosted the song for me so ya'll can have a listen. enjoy!and thanks, t1g, for helping out this techtard.

garbage in, garbage out

the boys have been at their dad's for almost two weeks now, i get them back on sunday. got to speak to them on the phone today, it didn't go well.

alex, "mommy, daddy lets me play quake on the computer"

me, "alex, you can't play that game, you're too young"

alex, "i'm a big boy"

me, "alex, i'm serious. that is not for young boys, it's not age appropriate and you shouldn't even see that, much less play"

alex, "you're funny when you talk like that"

UGH. true then got on the phone and told me that he likes to play too, but that the monsters are scary.

"put your father on the phone now," followed shortly by, "what are you thinking? they are 5 and 7, why would you let them play or even see that disgusting game?"

ex, "well, there's a lot of bad stuff on tv"

these are my sweet, beautiful children. they play pac man, galaga, dig dug, mrs. pacman. quake is a first person shooter game where your score and winning is dependent on how many evil aliens you kill. you fire weapons and chunks of flesh blow off. it's graphically a sophisticated game, and i know it too well because i argued with my ex about it BEFORE WE EVEN HAD KIDS.

he's forty fucking years old. i don't know what i'm going to do, but i'm thinking sending a letter and carbon copying it to his parents (since they still believe he's father of the year), my attorney, and whoever else will take it. i went on google images looking for bloody images i could send with the letter, but had a hard time capturing the carnage. if anyone has the ability to send me some freeze frames of that game, please email them to me at the address to the left. and i truly want to hear your honest opinion about this situation in the comments or by email. what would you do in my shoes?

as a side note, many of the websites that show stills are age protected, you are supposed to be 17 to enter those sites. why isn't this obvious to lord dumbass? I HATE ALCOHOLICS. they ruin the world one life at a time.

now i'm taking the day off and going tubing in the land of dash and feisty. ya'll be good, and leave me your thoughts on young boys and interactive video violence, pretty please in the comments. dissent if you must, but know i'm going to tear you up when i get back here monday.

have a great weekend!!

black tie frumptional

well, time is running out. yours truly is attending a wedding this weekend. it's black tie optional and the guest list is out of this world. the governor of texas will be in attendance. senator phil gramm will be in attendance. ut football coach mac brown will be in attendance. if i gave a wit for any of them, perhaps i'd be more excited, but as it turns out, i could care less.

i'm too concerned about being the proverbial elephant in the room. no shit, people, i've tried on a hundred dresses. i feel like i'm squeezing into mermaid costumes. it's not pretty. and here it's wednesday, two more days to go and i don't have a clue.

what is black tie optional? the entire web is dedicated to explaining this shit for men. WTF?? men are monkeys, tux or suit, easy enough, so why dedicate 10,000 websites to this? what about us women? egads, i'm in fashion hell where i have permanent parking. why must this be so difficult?

my escort is loving my fashion freak out. he'll gladly prey on any excuse to jump on my last nerve and beg that we skip this grueling event. and honestly, after a LOOOOOONG day of examining my cellulite in floor to ceiling mirrors, all i want to do is haul ass the other way.

but how can i? the groom has been such a sweetheart to me. when he played ut football, he was able to get me a football signed by the entire team for my brother, the biggest longhorn fan in texas, for christmas. when he got a job in the NFL, he sent my boys autographed pennants and posters. and last christmas, when i posted that i couldn't find the $70+ lego starship for true, he found out and sent it in the mail to my office.

and here's the kicker, he's red's son. while besides being a very close family friend, he's a great reminder to me that my kids might turn out all right. he grew up a child of divorce. he learned most of what he knows at the hands of a single working mom. and best of all, he had a disney dad that makes my kids' disney dad look like the run of the mill carnie that he is.

so i'll do something, i don't care what. i need to be there to show him that i'm thankful to be among those he invited to share in the most important day of his life. and i'll try to look beyond my own sequined shell and remember what it's like to be so in love that nothing else mattered, not even your broker doubling as a disco ball.

peace and love and wardrobe bliss to you all.

5-OH

that's what i'm talking about.

the panty placebo

howdy, ya'll.

with all the downers in the sphere of late, i thought i'd post a little coping mechanism that's been with me since college. back at UT, whenever my roommates or i would get the blues, we would go to the mall for our medicine. in the late eighties, a nice pair panties could set you back maybe $3, sometimes 3 for $5. the price isn't important, only the economy mattered.

i'm sure i don't have to explain how poverty stricken you are as a full time student. what was nice about the panty placebo was no matter how wrecked you felt on the outside, underneath you were nice and new. something about that classic mother cliche about clean underwear, maybe. maybe it was the ole change from within. i don't know how we got in the habit, but break-ups, bad grades and unsettling world events were often cured the same way.

so last week, i wander into victoria's secret and lo and behold they are having a sale. i LOVE my body by victoria bras so i started digging in the bins. only found one in my size, but peeps, it was perfect. $14.00, no really, and i was out of there like i'd just scored a crack rock. whoopty shit, i'm on the mend!!

sure enough, it's been a whole year since i bought a bra and mine were pretty worn. not in a salvation army way, but just broken in, ya know? well, peeps, it worked. 13 years gone by and i feel like i've had $14 plastic surgery. i'm rounder, lifty, bouncy, boobylicious if you will (i only said that to scare off the family readers). life is once again very good.

so if you are suffering in a funk and can't see a way out, if the gray skies are following you about, trust me, don't give up. get yourself a pair of flashy new drawers. want to go ho for awhile? who's going to know? that's between you and your outer clothing. have fun!

we're with the band

4th of july at the armadillo exchange. the boys had never seen live music before, not that they recognized anyway. they were in awe. guy played solo for almost 3 and a half hours straight, incredible. he played their favorite song "it's the little things, baby."

met the bare naked family. apparently they were sick of the rat race so they sold everything and hit the road. they home school three kids in an RV, and they seek out family friendly venues. they fell in love with guy's music and that's how they ended up in my little town for the fourth.

primary thought: the largest rv in the world wouldn't be large enough to be trapped with my boys, permanently. ya know, it's different, but definitely an american dream and you've got to envy that.

sorry so light lately.

love, love, love me some guy forsyth.

guy forsyth, "and finally, we don't want to forget to thank the fine folks here for giving us such a great rate in exchanging our armadillos."

fight club

blown eyes, gather round,

i spent the 4th at casa feisty . it was wonderful, as it always is. the handsome and sweet dashman barbequed his world famous bacon wrapped dove with jalepeno in the middle. droooooooooool. not to mention, venison sausage and tenderloin.

dash epitomized the perfect texan daddy-o on the fourth, giddy over which of his four barbeque pits to fire up, passing out shiners to any and all takers. the food was amazing, of course, and i haven't even told you about the red, white and blue dessert. the stuff of fantasies, people, and anyone who has gotten to try christina's cooking knows that i'm not exaggerating in the least.

we launched yabu's camera rocket around 3:33 or so, and the first time the wind took it and threw it into neighbor's yard. that's what kids are for, fetch, right? well, fetch sweet one did and the whole time she was wiring that sucker for the second launch, i felt sorry that yabu couldn't be there to see her in action. you would have been proud, buddy. the rocket camera was the hit of the holiday. my boys positively freaked out, they thought it was so cool.

especially the 110 film. that wasn't a rocket, it was a time capsule from 1975. look, we probably exposed the film. sorry, but how many camera rockets do you deal with? sweet one looked at that film cartridge like i'd hocked a loogie in her palm. total wtf expression, i felt like a dinosaur just for recognizing it.

anyway, if it wasn't exposed. we got the last aerial photos of dash and christina's beautiful home. it burned until 6 in the morning and what the flames didn't get, the water definitely did.

i talked with both of them today. they sounded amazing, both of them, despite all of it. they said they don't need a thing. it was surreal though. here i drove home, went to see guy forsyth with the kids, passed out, trudged to work, and the whole time they were watching their stuff go up in smoke, in their pajamas, which it turns out, are their only outfits.

they are the very best type of people in the world. everybody is safe and sound, they're lucky and they know it. and very thankful for how kind everyone has been. they say they don't need anything, but i think yabu has got the right idea.

why shouldn't this spectacle that epitomizes that which we all love about blodging be allowed to reach the circus level that it fully deserves? and isn't it just like yabu to do it for the children? what a great guy. think of the good that all this sick twisted blog drama could cause? finally, a purpose for all this nonsense!! i bet we could send wee and sweet to harvard!! let's do it!! pony up, blodge bretheren.

i'll personally pay a ben franklin for a transcript from that funeral service. sweeten the pot, as they say. do it for the children, people, bet on the fights, early and often!

as always, side bets welcome in the comments.

inalienable

hey, on a day like today, when we're finally getting a little much needed rain, the grass is so green and the birds are happy. the weather is mild for texas, seventy something outside, and the boys and i have big plans to spend the day giving thanks for the life we've been blessed with.

cause lets face it, under most other forms of government i'd have been incarcerated a long ass time ago. can you imagine little ole me as an arab? as a communist? as a somalian? i'd have my hands chopped off at a minimum, prolly more likely, my head.

yes life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (please understand government dependents: the pursuit is guaranteed, happiness is not guaranteed.) i've never been a destination centered person anyhow, it's always been about the roadtrip for me. afterall, i sell maps for a living. it's the pursuit and the freedom.

damn, my creator is a badass. happy birthday, USA! thank you God for your endowment, and thank you US military for your insurance. there's no place like home.

i wish i could play you the theme to "team america world police" now. i still can't upload music so i'll just sing you the good part:
"America, oh yeah!!
coming again to save the mother fucking day now,
America, fuck YEAH!
freedom is the only way now"

have a happy fourth of july, peeps! and around the world, try to imagine oppression free living. uh huh, we the it.